r*nv 


Conf  Pam  12mo  #387 

DTT1DDDD7(3 


Hill 


DRAUGHT 


OF 


!3t  Declaration  of  Inbcycvfoma, 

PROPOSI  D    TO    THE 

CONVENTION   OF   THE 

BTATE    ©7    ARK-ANtAft, 

AND 

Withdrawn    from  its   consideration. 


** 


LITTLE  ROCK: 

s  &  c 

18G1 


THE 

WILLIAM  R.  PERKINS 

LIBRARY 

OF 
DUKE  UNIVERSITY 


Rare  Books 


r 


[NOTE.] 


[The  instrument  here  printed  was  prepared  at  the  solicita- 
tion of  many  early  advocates  of  Southern  rights,  and  presented 
in  the  Convention  of  the  People  of  the  State  of  Arkansas  in 
May,  1861,  for  its  consideration. 

On  amendments  being  at  once  proposed,  and  it  being  mani- 
fest that  modifications  would  be  demanded  by  some  who  denied 
to  the  states  the  right  of  Secession,  this  paper  was  withdrawn, 
and  the  author  refused  to  permit  it  to  be  afterwards  offered  or 
used. 

It  is  now  published  by  request,  that  it  may  remain  during  all 
time,  to  show  upon  what  grounds  those  who  were  in  favor  of 
secession,  as  the  exercise  of  a  clear  right,  desired  to  place 
their  action,  and  in  what  attitude  to  present  their  State  to 
the  world;  not  as  a  criminal,  guilty  of  high  treason,  but  as  a 
Sovereignty,  preferring  a  tremendous  indictment  against  those 
States  that  had  violated  the  constitution  and  dishonored  them- 
selves.] 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2011  with  funding  from  , 
Duke  University  Libraries 


http://www.archive.org/details/draughtofdeclara01arka 


PROPOSED  DRAUGHT 


OF 


A  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 


THE  UNANIMOUS    DECLARATION  of  the  People  of  the 

State  of  Arkansas,  in  Convention  assembled,  on  the  day 

of  May,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord,  one  thousand  eight  hun„ 
drkd  an!)  sixty-one. 

When  inexorable  Necessity  compels  one  People  to  sever  the  ties 
of  Union  and  a  Common  Government  that  have  for  many  years 
connected  them  with  others;  to  assume  among  the  Powers  of 
the  world  that  equal  and  independent  station  to  which  they  are 
entitled,  and  to  form  new  bonds  of  Alliance  or  Confederation, 
in  order  to  preserve  their  liberty,  their  rights  and  their  honor, 
justice  entitles  them  to  be  heard  to  state  the  causes  which  impel 
them  to  such  separation. 

When  the  People  of  the  thirteen  United  States  of  America 
declared  their  independence,  they  proclaimed  these  undeniable 
truths;  that  all  governments  instituted  among  men  derive  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed  all  the  powers  with  which  they 
are  justly  invested,  and  that  whenever  any  government  becomes 
destructive  of  the  ends  for  which  it  was  instituted,  it  is  the 
right  of  the  people  to  alter  or  abolish  it,  and  to  institute  a  new 
government,  building  it  upon  the  solid  foundation  of  such  priir 


ciples,  aud  organizing  its  powers  in  such  form  as  may,  to  them, 
seem  most  likely  to  secure  their  safety  and  happiness. 

WE,  the  People  of  the  State  of  Arkansas,  reiterate  the^e 
principles,  to  deny  which  is  treason  against  Liberty  itself;  and 
do  rely  upon  them  for  our  complete  justification. 

Our  fathers  declared,  that  prudence  dictated,  that  govern- 
ments long  established  should  not  be  changed  for  light  and 
transient  causes:  and  the  occurrences  of  the  past  ten  years 
have  shown  the  truth  of  their  assertion,  that  men  are  more 
disposed  to  suffer  while  evils  are  sufferable,  than  to  right  them- 
selves by  abolishing  the  forms  to  which  they  are  accustomed. 

But  when  the  great  purposes  for  which  a  common  government 
and  a  Union  of  States  were  created,  are  wholly  and  persistently 
disregarded;  and  essential  conditions  of  that  union  are  habitu- 
ally violated  and  permanently  annulled  by  a  majority  of  those 
states;  when  the  system  of  government  itself  is  denaturalized' 
and  its  powers  perverted  to  the  worst  uses,  so  that  the  union 
becomes  an  engine  of  oppression,  by  which  the  majority  of  the 
states  is  enabled  to  imperil  the  property  and  endangerthe  safety 
of  the  minority  with  impunity,  then  it  is  not  only  the  right  but 
the  duty  of  a  state  thus  wronged,  insulted  and  endangered,  to 
throw  off  the  yoke  of  such  government,  and  singly,  or  with 
others  in  like  manner  aggrieved,  to  provide  new  guards  for 
future  security. 

Such  is  the  necessity  which  now  constrains  us  to  rescind  a 
violated  compact,  and  to  establish  other  relations  and  a  new 
government.  The  longer  continuance  of  the  Union  heretofore 
existing  has  become  impossible,  unless  the  people  of  Arkansas 
were  dead  to  all  considerations,  not  alone  of  self-respect  and 
honor,  but  even  of  peace  and  safety.  Repeated  aggressions 
and  reiterated  injuries  on  the  part  of  the  Northern  States,  per- 
sistent violations  of  the  constitution,  denials  of  common  right' 
which,  if  tolerated,  would  sink  the  States  of  the  South  to  the 
condition  of  Provinces;  and  a  long  train  of  other  wrongs* 
patiently  endured  by  them  for  many  years,  have  proven  the 
deliberate  intention  of  those  whom  we  once  called  brethren,  to 
make  us  their  subjects  and  tributaries;  until  the  Union  has 
fallen  asunder  by  its  own  weight. 


Before  the  bar  of  the  whole  civilized  world  we  arraign  the 
Northern  States,  their  statesmen,  their  men  of  letters,  their 
divines  and  their  people: 

They  have  changed  the  very  nature  of  the  Constitution,  by 
embracing  the  doctrine  that  it  is  not  a  compact  between  the 
States,  and  that  these  are  no  parties  to  it,  but  that  it  is  an  im- 
perative creation  and  enactment  of  a  Supreme  Government,  by 
the  People  of  all  the  States:  thus  annulling  all  State  Sover- 
eignty and  independence,  and  converting  a  Constitutional  Re- 
public and  Union  of  States  into  the  government  of  a  mere 
popular  majority;  and  striking  down  all  our  guards  of  freedom 
and  security  at  once. 

They  have  proclaimed  that  there  is  a  law  superior  to  the  Con- 
stitution; of  which  each  individual  conscience  is  the  judge  in 
the  last  resort;  which  absolves  them  from  all  obligation  to  obey 
that  Constitution,  whenever,  in  their  private  opinion,  the  two 
conflict;  and  which  yet  permits  them  to  swear  to  support  it, 
with  a  mental  reservation,  whenever  they  cannot  otherwise 
hold  an  office  that  enables  them  to  violate  it  with  effect  and 
impunity. 

While  the  people  of  each  of  the  United  States,  in  ordaining 
and  establishing  the  Constitution,  declared  that  they  did  so,  in 
order  to  form  a  more  perfect  Union,  establish  justice,  insure 
domestic  tranquility,  provide  for  the  common  defense,  promote 
the  general  welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  them- 
selves and  their  posterity,  the  Northern  States  and  People  have 
made  that  Constitution,  by  their  habitual  perversions  and  vio- 
lations of  its  provisions,  an  instrument  to  alienate  one  section 
of  the  country  from  another,  and  so  to  destroy  the  Union;  to 
annihilate  domestic  tranquility  and  substitute  in  its  stead  insur- 
rections, disturbances,  hatreds,  and  a  general  sense  of  insecur- 
ity; to  provide  for  the  defense  and  promote  the  welfare  of  the 
North,  at  the  expense  of  the  South;  and  to  inflict  the  curse  of 
freedom  on  an  inferior  race,  to  the  ruin  of  ourselves  and  our 
posterity,  for  whom  the  Constitution  was  made. 

In  fulfilment  of  their  determination  to  lower  the  white  man 
to  the  level  of  the  African,  and  in  open  and  deliberate  defiance 
of  the   solemn   decision   of    the    Supreme    Court,    they    have 


adhered  to  the  doctrine  that  negroes  may  become  citizens  of  the 
United  States;  by  permitting  them  to  vote  by  thousands  for  their 
President  and  Vice-President,  lately  elected. 

They  have  in  other  respects  refused  to  submit  to  the  decis- 
ions of  the  Supreme  Court,  solemnly  pronounced,  whenever 
those  decisions  have  conflicted  with  their  notions  of  the  Consti- 
tution and  the  higher  law;  and  have  thus  leveled  another  bar- 
rier, reared  by  the  Fathers,  against  encroachment  and  usurpa- 
tion by  popular  majorities. 

They  have  appointed  as  representatives  abroad,  and  to  offices 
of  high  trust  and  honor  at  home,  a  multitude  of  men,  whose 
chief  recommendation  it  is,  that  they  are  singularly  and  justly 
odious  to  the  Southern  States,  and  whose  public  acts  are 
remarkable  for  little  else  than  bitter  and  persistent  hostility  to 
us  and  our  institutions. 

They  have  canonized  in  their  churches,  and  dared  to  com- 
pare with  the  Redeemer  of  mankind,  a  miscreant  who  had  in- 
vaded a  State  of  the  South  with  an  armed  band,  endeavored 
to  excite  a  servile  insurrection,  and  committed  murder  and 
treason;  and  who  had  been  justly  tried,  condemned  and  execu- 
ted as  a  felon. 

After  profitably  carrying  on  the  slave-trade  for  many  years, 
and  while  their  people  and  their  vessels  are  still  engaged  in  it; 
after  preventing  its  abolition  at  an  earlier  period  than  the  year 
eighteen  hundred  and  eight;  after  relieving  themselves  of  their 
slaves,  not  by  emancipation,  but  by  selling  Ihem,  they  have,  on 
account  of  the  existence  of  slavery  in  the  Southern  States, 
pharisaically  and  insultingly  assumed  to  stand  upon  a  higher 
level  of  virtue,  morality  and  social  refinement  than  ourselves; 
have  allowed  a  crusade  to  be  organized  against  us,  have  encour- 
aged their  writers  and  divines  to  malign  and  defame  us,  and 
have  strenuously  labored  to  array  against  us  the  prejudices  and 
to  arouse  against  us  the  hatred  of  the  whole  civilized  world. 

By  means  of  Tariffs  devised  for  purposes  of  protection  to 
their  manufactures;  of  the  monopoly  of  the  coast-wise  carrying 
trade;  of  the  exclusion  from  that  trade  of  vessels  foreign-built 
by  means  of  which  New  England  has  been  the  ship-builder 
and  common  carrier  for  the  whole  Union;  and  of  fishing  boun- 


ties  and  other  devices  sedulously  resorted  to  from  the  very  be- 
ginning of  the  government,  they  have  systematically  levied 
tribute  of  the  People  of  the  South,  to  the  amount  of  hundreds 
of  millions  annually;  until,  insolent  with  the  prosperity  thus 
attained,  they  refuse  longer  to  pay  the  consideration  of  non- 
interference with  our  property  and  rights,  to  secure  which  the 
Southern  States  have  so  long  submitted  to  an  unjust  and  oner- 
ous system  of  taxation,  b}T  which  they  vainly  hoped  to  purchase 
peace. 

For  the  purpose  of  compelling  us  through  fear,  to  submit  to 
the  demands  of  their  insatiable  avarice,  and  to  permit  the 
heavy  burthens  laid  upon  us  to  be  doubled,  they  have  with  a 
deliberate  wickedness  unparalleled  in  its  infamy,  appealed  to 
the  prejadices  even  of  the  foreigners  among  them  against  sla- 
very, represented  it  as  hostile  to  free  labor,  excited  hatred 
against  the  owners  of  slaves,  whom  they  have  denounced  as 
few  in  number  and  despisers  of  the  poor,  and  converted  even 
Religion  and  Philanthropy  into  devilish  engines  of  malice;  and 
while  thus  engaged  they  have  shamelessly  avowed  their  motive, 
by  offering  to  quiet  the  passions  thus  aroused,  if  we  would  but 
submit  quietly  and  permanently  to  a  Tariff  arranged  to  enrich 
them  at  our  expense;  thus  purchasing  an  inglorious  peace  by 
paying  dishonorable  tribute. 

They  have  organized  a  party  in  all  their  States  upon  the 
single  basis  of  oppositu  n  to  slavery,  and  for  the  purpose, 
sometimes  concealed  and  sometimes  declared,  of  ultimately 
abolishing  it  every  where. 

They  have  by  this  means,  at  length,  placed  the  powers  of 
Government  in  the  hands  of  those  who  have  for  years  sedu- 
lously impregnated  the  minds  of  their  people  with  the  convic- 
tion that  there  is  of  necessity  an  irrepressible  conflict  between 
the  two  systems  of  labor,  slave  and  free,  and  that  one  or  the 
other  must  ultimately  prevail  in  all  the  States. 

They  have  proclaimed  the  doctrine,  that  all  men,  of  whatever 
color,  are  unconditionally  entitled  to  freedom;  that  it  is  a  crime, 
and  the  sum  of  all  villainies,  to  hold  any  human  being  in 
bondage,  and  that  every  slave  has  a  right,  by  the  law  of  God 
and  Nature,  to  slay  his  master  in  order  to  escape.     They  have 


10 

circulated  incendiary  publications  among  our  domestics,  sent 
emissaries  to  incite  them  to  insurrection,  and  even  commis- 
sioned ministers  of  the  Gospel  to  assist  in  bringing  upon  us  and 
upon  our  wives  and  daughters  the  multiplied  horrors  of  civil 
war. 

They  have,  in  most  of  their  states,  by  a  legislation  that  in- 
volves perjury  as  well  as  violation  of  a  solemn  contract  and 
forfeiture  of  honor,  wilfully  annulled  that  provision  of  the  Con- 
stitution which  bound  them  to  deliver  up  persons  held  to  labor 
or  service,  on  claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such  labor  or  service 
is  due:  making  it,  in  manys  tates,  a  felony,  infamous,  and  pun- 
ishable with  penalties  that  involve  infamy,  for  such  party  to 
reclaim  his  slave,  if  he  can  establish  his  right  by  such  testimony 
only  as  by  the  act  of  Congress  in  that  behalf  is  sufficient;  so 
that  this  essential  condition  of  the  Union,  without  which  it 
would  never  have  been  formed,  has  virtually  been  stricken  out 
of  the  Constitution. 

They  have  denied  to  our  citizens  the  right  of  even  passing 
through  their  States,  carrying  with  them  their  domestic  ser- 
vants. 

They  have  permitted  riotous  assemblages  of  negroes  to 
defeat  by  violence  and  terror  the  process  of  the  United  States, 
and  to  murder  our  citizens  who  have  entered  their  borders, 
peaceably  and  in  accordance  with  law,  to  reclaim  their  slaves; 
and  their  juries  have  promptly  acquitted  the  murderers. 

Their  governors  have  refused  to  cause  to  be  surrendered, 
upon  the  legal  demand  of  the  States  aggrieved,  persons  guilty 
of  crime,  who  have  taken  refuge  among  them,  when  those  per- 
sons were  aLo  slaves. 

Their  courts  have  begun  to  set  at  defiance  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  descending  to  the  base  service  of 
shielding  those  who  have  broken  the  laws  resisted  the  process, 
and  done  violence  to  the  officers,  of  the  United  States. 

Thry  have  claimed  and  exercised  for  thirty  years,  the  right, 
by  Congressional  legislation,  virtually  to  exclude  the  people  of 
the  Southern  States  from  the  common  territory,  purchased  with 
the  moneys  or  blood  of  the  South  and  the  North  alike. 

They  have  permitted  the  occupants  of  the  public  lands  in  a 


11 

new  territory  to  enact  laws  destroying  the  rights  of  property  of 
our  citizens  therein,  and  making  it  a  felony  for  the  owner  of  a 
slave  to  claim  to  be  entitled  to  his  labor  and  service,  and  have 
refused  in  Congress  to  annul  those  laws;  by  which,  if  they  were 
valid,  every  fugitive  from  service,  entitled  to  be  reclaimed,  if 
he  escapes  to  a  State,  becomes  free  at  the  moment  when  he 
plants  his  foot  on  the  soil  of  a  Territory. 

They  have  allowed  the  Southern  States  to  be  defamed  in 
the  Senate,  as  the  Barbary  States  of  the  Union,  and  the  whole 
people  of  these  States  to  be  charged  there,  by  one  immense 
indictment,  as  by  means  of  the  existence  of  slavery  necessarily 
inferior  in  respect  to  individual  decency,  private  honor  and 
private  virtue;  and  this  hideous  arraignment,  not  dissented  from 
by  any  Northern  Senator,  has  been  formally  adopted  as  its  own. 
by  the  State  whose  Senator  uttered  it,  in  order  by  this  unusual 
formality  to  make  the  insult  more  gross  and  deadly. 

While  they  are  rapidly  creating  new  States  in  the  north-west, 
at  a  rate  of  progress  dangerous  to  the  South,  and  continually 
accelerated  by  improper  inducements  held  out  to  emigrants  at. 
our  expense,  they  determine  to  forbid  our  extension  to  the 
south-west;  intending  thus  to  confine  slavery  within  narrower 
and  yet  narrower  limits,  as  it  disappears  from  the  Border  States; 
and  so  attempting  to  repeal  a  law  of  God,  by  which  growth  is 
a  necessity  for  young  and  vigorous  nations,  in  order  to  impose 
upon  our  children  the  hideous  danger  of  an  overflowing  and 
unprofitable  servile  population,  forbidden  an  outlet,  and  becom- 
ing a  danger  and  a  curse. 

We  arraign  these  insolent  and  audacious  States  at  the  bar 
of  the  civilized  world: 

For  declaring  it  to  be  treason  and  rebellion  on  the  part  of 
seven  States  to  withdraw  peaceably  from  the  Union  for  these 
repeated,  deliberate  and  long  continued  infractions  of  the  Con- 
stitution on  the  part  of  their  Northern  Confederates. 

Fur  persisting  in  holding  forts  and  arsenals  in  those  States, 
after  they  had,  with  a  unanimity,  a  wisdom  and  an  order  un- 
exampled, formed  a  new  Confederacy,  and  when  they  were 
proposing  to  their  late  associates  relations  of  peace  and  friend- 
ship, and  interchange  of  good  offices. 


12 

For  endeavoring  to  re-in force  those  forts,  after  repeated 
promises  and  pledges  to  the  contrary;  thus  provoking  and  com- 
pelling hostilities,  by  treachery  and  falsehood. 

For  attempting  to  blockade  the  ports  of  the  Southern  States 
and  so  to  cut  off  their  trade  with  all  parts  of  the  world. 

For  attempting  to  collect  duties  in  the  South,  in  accordance 
with  a  law  intentionally  framed  and  enacted  for  the  benefit  of 
individuals,  and  to  enable  a  few  to  grow  rich  by  plundering  the 
many. 

For  calling  out  large  bodies  of  the  militia,  contrary  to  the 
Constitution  and  the  laws,  in  order  to  make  war  upon  the 
Southern  States. 

For  threatening  to  excite  domestic  insurrection  among  us; 
and  for  endeavoring  to  array  one  portion  of  our  people  against 
the  other. 

They  have  abdicated  government  in  these  States,  by  declar- 
ing them  in  rebellion,  and  waging  war  against  them: 

They  are  at  this  time  marching  large  armies  to  the  frontiers 
of  the  Southern  States,  in  the  hope  of  reducing  them  to  sub- 
jection by  arms,  and  are  threatening  to  occupy  with  a  great 
force  of  troops  the  Indian  country  upon  our  border. 

Never  eager  to  defend  the  honor  of  their  country  against  a 
foreign  foe,  they  hive  hastened,  with  indecent  swiftness,  to 
tender  men  and  money  to  the  National  Government,  and  to 
offer  to  aid  in  subjugating  the  Southern  States;  thus  proving 
their  hatred  of  us,  and  that  continued  union  with  them  is 
equally  impossible  and  undesirable. 

We  have  not  acted  hastily  or  in  anger.  We  have  waited 
patiently,  hoping  that  the  patriotic  efforts  at  reconciliation 
made  by  the  Border  States,  might  possibly  be  crowned  with 
success;  and  that  a  returning  sense  of  justice  would  relight  in 
the  Northern  heart  the  flame  of  a  generous  and  noble  patriot- 
ism. 

While  our  sister  Southern  States  of  the  same  blood  and 
lineage,  the  same  manners  and  institutions,  as  ourselves,  ap- 
pealed to  us  to  unite  our  fortunes  with  theirs,  and  warned  us 
that  we  had  nothing  to  expect  from  the  generosity  or  justice  of 
the  North,  we  still  paused.     Devoted  to  the   Union  established 


13 

by  the  Fathers,  we  still  hoped  that  a  final  separation  might  be 
prevented,  and  harmony  restored. 

That  hope  has  disappeared.  We  are  forced  to  elect  whether 
we  will  draw  the  sword  with  or  against  our  sister  Southern 
States;  and  Honor  and  Decency  alike  forbid  us  longer  to  hesi- 
tate. Suffering  under  the  same  wrongs,  and  having  identical 
interests,  we  elect  to  share  their  fortunes,  and  must  acquiesce 
in  the  necessity  which  compels  us  to  separate  from  the  North- 
ern States,  and  to  hold  them  enemies  in  war,  in  peace   friends. 

WE,    THEREFORE,     THE    DELEGATES    AND    REPRESENTATIVES    OF    THE 

State  of  ARKANSAS,  in  General  Convention  assembled,  ap- 
pealing to  the  Supreme  Judge  of  the  World  for  the  rectitude 
of  our  intentions,  do,  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  the 
good  People  of  this  State,  solemnly  publish  and  declare,  that 
the  State  of  Arkansas  is,  and  by  right  ought  to  be,  a  free,  sove- 
reign and  independent  State;  that  her  people  are  absolved 
from  all  allegiance  to  the  United  States  of  America,  and  that 
all  political  connection  between  them  and  the  States  known 
by  that  name,  and  continuing  in  that  Union,  is  and  ought  to  be 
totally  dissolved:  and  that  as  a  free  and  independent  State 
they  have  full  power  to  levy  war,  conclude  peace,  contract 
alliances,  establish  commerce,  unite  in  a  new  Confederation, 
and  do  all  other  acts  and  things  which  independent  States  of 
right  may  do. 

And  for  the  support  of  this  declaration,  with  a  humble  but 
firm  reliance  on  the  protection  of  Divine  Providence,  we 
mutually  pledge  to  each  other  our  lives,  our  fortunes  and  our 
sacred  honor. 


Hollinger  Corp, 
PH  8.5 


